


Never and Always, Touching and Touched

by elruesta



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Amok Time, Angst, Character Study, First Kiss, M/M, Slash, Star Trek: TOS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 15:38:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/993629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elruesta/pseuds/elruesta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What had happened on Vulcan would not stay on Vulcan. It simply refused."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never and Always, Touching and Touched

**Author's Note:**

> Another head-canon inspired ficlet. The events in this take place immediately following the events of Amok Time.

The doors to Sickbay hissed open and shut as Jim Kirk exited with Mr. Spock at his side, as if he’d always been there, and always will be.

The hall hummed with the conversational din of workers just off shift. Curious eyes of passers-by followed the captain and first officer. News of the koon-ut-kal-lif-fee no doubt had already begun to diffuse throughout the ship like gossip vapor, but at the moment Jim was too tired, too sore to care. A captain cannot fake death mid-battle with his own personal prime directive without the obligatory ache and yawn. However exhausted, however loud duty called, Jim gently touched Spock’s arm, pausing their trek to the bridge to face each other just before the lift doors. The buzz of chatter hushed imperceptibly. Lingering engineers, scientists, civilians scuttled on to their destinations like children caught spying.

"Care for a game of chess?" Deceptively casual. Spock could tell, could he not? Jim metaphorically crossed his fingers.

"Chess, Captain?" Spock’s eyebrows even resembled question marks as he furrowed both, raising one. The hall was now empty.

"I suppose now would be an inappropriate time." The Vulcan still eyed him questioningly. "And after today, the request does indeed seem odd." Jim smiled. "So, 2100 hours?"

Spock’s angular features softened, though a new emotion lit dimly in his eyes. "Your quarters?"

"Of course." Both stepped into the turbo-lift, rising to the bridge.

 

* * *

 

At precisely 2058.23 hours, Spock rose from meditation, put out the burning incense, and left the room, bound for the captain’s quarters.

Jim’s quarters, Spock’s subconscious corrected. Jim. He held his breath. Meditation had found him no solace from the thoughts like k'karee that slithered and infected both of his halves. His palms burned at his sides and echoed with what had happened, what could have happened.

And Jim wanted to play chess.

Hesitantly at first, inexorably at last, Jim had silently exuded such raw feeling in Spock's presence that only time could tell, only Jim's eyes would signify, when that emotion would precipitate. Jim's eyes spoke to Spock in Sickbay earlier, in the lift earlier, his irises bronze as a tolling clock tower bell. This was not about chess. He sighed. He clenched his fists, placing them behind his back, too conscious of his unsteady breathing.

His mind wandered back to T'Pring on the main viewer. _We meet at the appointed place_. Spock believed the human expression in this situation would be, "adding salt to the wound," as he realized the captain awaited his own Vulcan at his own appointed place.

The first officer reached his superior's quarters. The whistle sounded. "Permission to enter, Captain?"

"Permission granted," Kirk replied, shutting off his personal computer mid-log-entry. The doors slid open. Spock entered just far enough so that the doors would shut, and they did.

Grinning hazel eyes met smooth, unreadable brown. The captain stood up from his desk, taking in the sight of his tense first officer. The space between them seemed almost magnetic in its repulsion, for both man's thoughts lingered on the same scene, the same metaphorical pole. What had happened on Vulcan would not stay on Vulcan. It simply refused.

Spock took a few steps forward, noticing immediately the absence of the chess set. "I was under the impression this meeting was for a chess match."

Vulcan humor. Jim chuckled lightly, slightly forced. "Change of plans, Mister Spock."

"A 'change in plans' would require a shift in decision. This is something you had originally planned."

"An astute observation." Kirk tentatively advanced, leaving just two feet between them. "I would expect nothing less from the finest First Science Officer in the fleet." Spock nodded at the compliment, waiting. "I suppose I'm not so unpredictable," Jim continued, smirking. "Although, you seem to know me better than most."

"I would not assume so. I have developed only an outsider's understanding of human illogic." Even in his inner frenzy, Spock exacted enough control to appear outwardly calm. "Your illogic is of a different breed." His throat was dry like the Vulcan desert wind. A dust storm swirled in his irises. "A significant event occurred today. Surely, being human, you wish to discuss it, Captain."

Kirk grew warm with an anxious heat. "Jim. Please, Spock, just call me Jim." He smiled weakly, his pulse and confidence growing uneasy. Ironic how only two years could seem so long when Jim's and Spock's entire lifetimes were so irrevocably intertwined. Jim began. "When I - when I came to in Sickbay, my first thought was of you. Of how you were feeling, whether McCoy's plan worked, or not."

Spock inwardly shuddered, considering the circumstances had McCoy not administered the drug, considering in what position that would put himself. Kirk, dead, truly gone, never to smile again, eyes closed, void of soul, slack-jawed and splay-legged in the hot Vulcan sun. Spock lost his breath at the thought. He would not think of it again.

"Then," Jim continued. "I heard your voice. 'Captain.' Captain. Such a reunion between any captain and his first officer would no doubt bring a captain great joy, but not of the degree to which I experienced it. The greatest joy. Bliss beyond bliss. That which I held and hold dearest, right before me, alive, living, breathing my air - the form of my first officer. My _male_ first officer." Kirk shook his head.

Captaincy forbade relations with officers, not necessarily in regulation, but perhaps in conduct. "Frowned upon" was the human term. Mutual feelings would theoretically cause a loophole. But the captain's promiscuity was renowned; his heterosexuality, resolute. Spock could only blink.

But Jim cast a meaningful glance into his exception's eyes. "Instinct tells me it's wrong, all wrong, but you know the persistence of the human heart, the human spirit." Jim's eyes were passionate tempests. "Then I saw the same bliss in your smile. I heard the same bliss in your voice."

"Jim," Spock whispered. The same tone, the same inflection.

Jim nodded. "In Sickbay, that spoken word stretched out into three, requited syllables." Daringly, gently, Jim laid a hand on Spock's neck.

The Vulcan did not shy away from the touch. Jim's thoughts crept down his fingertips and into Spock's neck like a whisper, an echo, a reverberation of those three syllables. Spock only nodded, the lightest smile playing at his lips. "An astute observation."

"Your thoughts on the matter, Spock?"

"There is nothing to add, Jim."

Kirk beamed. With his free hand he gestured for a Vulcan kiss. When Spock reciprocated, he leaned in with parted lips.


End file.
